Johnny was gone by the time Maxie woke up. If it wasn't for slight indention on her pillow and his scent still lingering on her skin, she would have never even guessed that he had been there. She tried not to chastise herself as she sat up slowly, feeling as hazy as she did after a long night of partying in Manhattan. The twilight sky sparkled outside, indicating that the day was drawing to a close and night would soon be here.

Maxie hated night most of all. It was after the sun set when she felt most alone. She traced the feeling back to growing up when her mother would sneak out of the house after the girls were in bed, off to the other side to chase her latest adventure. Mac had tried to give them the stable upbringing that children needed, but Maxie and Georgie had always known that they were different. While Maxie should have been the one to comfort Georgie as the older sister, it was the younger Jones who had taken on the maternal role from an early age. She would entertain Maxie with wild fairytales that she would make up extemporaneously in the dark. As she swung her toned legs over the side of the bed, Maxie would have given anything to hear just one more of her sister's stories. Instead, she took a deep breath and headed barefoot toward the kitchen in search of a cup of coffee.

She was surprised to see the lights on beneath the kitchen door. She knew that Lulu wasn't home. The living room was still clean, free of Lulu's discarded clothes and shoes as it always was at the end of the day. Swinging the door open, she expected to find Spinelli in there scrounging around for junk food. Instead, she found a half-dressed Johnny propped up on the counter, munching happily on some leftover Chinese from the refrigerator.

"Those are my lo mein noodles," she announced nonchalantly as she headed over to the coffeemaker to start a new brew. Johnny shrugged unapologetically as he popped a piece of broccoli into his mouth. "I didn't think you were anymore, figured you'd left."

"Now, why would I do a thing like that, Jones?" Maxie didn't answer as she reached into the cabinet beside him to grab her favorite mug. He caught her wrist and pulled her between his parted legs. Leaning down, he kissed her roughly, entwining his fingers in her hair in an effort to pull her closer. Maxie slid her arms around his strong torso, sending her coveted mug crashing to the ground. "I'm not quite finished having you yet. I just needed to get some carbs in me to replenish my energy for another round."

Maxie licked her bottom lip eliciting before sliding her knees to start gathering the pieces of the mug. "And who said that I was going to let you have another go at me?" she asked. She should have been angry that her favorite cup was ruined, but she just couldn't find the energy to be upset after a kiss like that. Some things like kissing Johnny Zacharra were worth a few broken dishes. "I mean, I don't want to make the same mistake twice, you know?"

"Well, you better get ready because this," he announced, waving between them, "is a mistake that I intend on making many, many times." Maxie smirked to herself without giving any sense of how much she wanted him. She knew how to play it cool, to keep a guy wanting her just as much as she wanted him. "By the way, can I tell you just how much I like seeing you in that position?"

Looking at him with hooded bedroom eyes, Maxie portrayed every ounce of feigned innocence she could pull off. Setting the fragmented shards of glass to the side, she crawled toward the counter on her knees, never once breaking his gaze. "Why don't you come down here and join me?" Tossing the mostly empty carton into the sink, Johnny slipped off the Formica counter and onto the tile floor with his tempting playmate. With his back firmly against cabinets, Maxie continued her journey toward him until she was crawling into his lap. Straddling his thighs, she took his hands and ran them down her sides until they found a new home on her ass. "Lulu could walk in any minute."

Johnny nodded at her knowingly. Half the fun of their interludes was the fact that they could get caught. He lived for the adrenaline rush he got when he was doing something he knew that he shouldn't be doing. Maxie Jones was currently at the very top of the list of things he shouldn't be doing. "And if she does, what are you going to say?"

Maxie looked at him over her shoulder, batting her eyelashes as if she had no clue. "Ask her to join us?"

"Seriously?"

"Of course not!" she laughed. She knew that every guy's fantasy was to have two women at once, especially two blondes as young and beautiful as her and Lulu. However, Maxie had never been good at sharing, and she didn't plan on letting anyone have a piece of what was hers. She had Johnny Zacharra exactly where she wanted him, anyone else be damned. "Besides, I'm more than any one man can handle. You don't need anyone else when you have me."

"And do I have you?"

She thought about this for a moment before giving her answer, "For the moment." Their eyes locked in a moment of mutual understanding. Their flame flickered too brightly for it to last forever. It would eventually be extinguished. However, for the time being, Maxie was willing to give as much of herself as she could for as long as it lasted. "For the moment, you can have me right here on this kitchen floor."

Johnny smiled devilishly as he pulled at the useless sash on her satin robe. The garment flooded around her shoulders and to the ground behind her. He was completely still as he framed her face in his hands. "You are so beautiful that it's enough to make a guy literally ache."

"You know that you don't have to use those kinds of lines with me, Zacharra," she reminded him. "I mean, I'm pretty much a sure thing."

"It's not a line if it's the truth," he retorted before capturing her mouth with his. Her hands slid over his neck as his tongue darted past her juicy lips. Her legs were entwined tightly enough around his waist that he managed to pick her up fairly easily and carry her over to the small table in the corner. Laying her on her back, he stood back to take a long look at the feast laid out before him. He started at her earlobes and jawline, nipping playfully at her peachy skin. Making his way down her neck, he brushed openmouthed kisses over her collarbone and between her breasts. His attack continued to her belly button, where he swirled his tongue over her sculpted abdomen. Maxie reached down to press him down further, gasping when he finally found her core. She held him there for a moment before freeing him to return to her.

Climbing onto the table next to her, Johnny rolled her on top of him so that they were connected. One of his feet sent a chair crashing to the floor as they found their groove, her voice calling out several octaves above his. Maxie's head hit harshly against the tabletop as he drove against her over and over again, but it was exactly how she liked it. It was how they both liked it. If their time had a fun limit, they would make sure to use every second of it.

After spending a good fifteen minutes on her back on the table, Johnny finally pulled Maxie up until she was sitting on the edge again. Sensing his continued urge to have her again, she slipped to the floor and leaned over so that her backside was pressed against his center. Looking back at him over her shoulder, she nodded slightly for him to continue. He bent over her, gripping her shoulder for leverage. Everything got a little hazy after that.

Completely spent and unable to gather enough strength to stay on his feet, Johnny collapsed into one of the chairs at the table, pulling Maxie down into his lap. "Alright, some day when I am old and unable to find my libido, I am going to remember that one," he chuckled proudly. Maxie giggled in response as she leaned against him, reaching for one of the strawberries he'd been slicing on the counter nearby. She wiped one over her lips, popped it into his mouth and turned to kiss Johnny. "You taste so good."

"We should probably get dressed or something. Lulu could be home any minute."

"You weren't saying that ten minutes ago when you were bent over the table," he teased before stealing another kiss. He could kiss this woman forever. "But you're probably right. I'm not sure if Lulu and I are over, but I don't think that her finding us together naked at your kitchen table would probably be the best way for us to officially breakup."

Maxie was quiet as they went back to her bedroom to retrieve their clothes. Only when they were both fully dressed did she address his earlier statement. "You know that I'm not asking you to break up with her, right?" she asked. "I mean, I'm not looking this into anything permanent."

"I think if we have learned anything here it's that I'm not good at the whole relationship thing either," he proclaimed softly. He caught her eye in the mirror just as he had earlier. She smoothed down her blonde hair in a vain attempt to look as if she wasn't completely spent. "Jones, I heard you loud and clear earlier. We're both just having some fun."

"God, I wish it could be that simple," she sighed. Maxie reached for the lip gloss on her dresser and reapplied a layer of the soft pink hue. "I wish that I didn't care about Spinelli so much. I wish that I still hated Lulu. I wish that hurting them could be easy. It used to be that I was the only one that I hurt, but now, I'm hurting two of the only people that I can call my friend."

Johnny came up behind her and slipped his arms around her waist. He knew it was a risky move to be so intimate with her, but he couldn't resist the opportunity to hold her. "I wish that I had met you on the edge of town that night instead of Lulu," he confessed quietly. "Everything would be different."

"Zacharra, if I had met you that night, who knows what would have happened? We would have burn out a long time ago. At least this way we got to be friends first. You never really had that with Lulu. Maybe that was the problem."

"You're friends with Spinelli, and that hasn't seemed to change anything."

She shook her head adamantly. "That's where you're wrong. Before Spinelli, I didn't really have a guilty conscience unless it had to do with Georgie or Mac. He was the first person that I wasn't related to that cared enough to stick around. I'm not really sure that Lulu would do that even now. Every girl needs someone who is going to show up on your birthday and tell you that he's happy that you were born. No matter what has happened, Spinelli has become that guy for me. I always tell you that he is my essential person, but you never really seem to get what that means. That's the best way I know how to explain it. I don't have my sister anymore, but I have Spinelli. It's like how you feel about Claudia. You will always show up for her. I would do that for him. He's my best friend in the world."

Johnny knew that he didn't have the right to feel jealous about her relationship with Spinelli but he did. He hated the thought of her loving anyone that wasn't him. It wasn't that he wanted her to love him, at least not yet. This was just supposed to be for fun, anyhow. He had to keep telling himself that before he let himself feel anything more.

"You're a good girl, Jones."

She smiled at him sweetly in the mirror. "Just don't tell anyone, okay?"

"It's our little secret," he agreed, leaning down to drop a kiss on her shoulder.